I have to be honest it's really dissappointing how much this set keeps getting pared back from the ambitions of the IC. Losing 10u, R5, windowed keys, and now UV print for all those S keys...it just doesn't have the same instant appeal.
I thougt the major appeal of this set lay in all the new molds it would unlock for future projects in the community, particularly the development of a GMK 10u mold. The bannana bar is such a neat visuaul option for designers to incorporate into their keysets and boards, but we don't see more of it because the gold-standard keycap manu can't make it anymore. CK are an experienced vendor, clearly fans of vintage stuff, and have a decent amount of financial weight to throw behind a project like this, so I assumed you all were going into this with at least some rough idea about what the cost would be for tooling and a shared understanding about why the initial reception to this was so overhwhelmingly positive.
Please forgive me if I sound totally foolish. I just led myself into thinking the real pitch with this project was that CK and GMK were looking to invest in some cool new tooling as a capital expenditure to expand what designers can make even after this particular set runs. Based on the multiple rounds of back-and-forth betwen the stakeholders here, though, it seems that they are specifically interested in having this set stand on its own commercially.
I love novelty keys and vintage kit as much as the next guy, but I figured it would be obvious to everyone at the table for this project that a set like this as originally proposed would never, ever be popular enough to justify multiple major tooling investments on its own. So, now this all feels like a bait & switch. Like, if CK needed this to be commercially viable without them eating what can only be tens of thousands in tooling cost, is this not basically months of time wasted on quotes that were bound to be overbudget?
